Vogel fliegt. Fisch schwimmt. Ich blogge.

It’s a benefit to be multilingual.

Tolstoy once wrote with every language you learn, you gain a new soul.

Being multilingual does not make people stupider than they are, indeed, some may improve. I have been raised with three languages (Turkish, Swedish and German) from my early childhood on. And some imperfect school English and daily IT pidgin additionally.

It’s not the obvious fact that you speak several languages acquired by childhood, education or training, but you have much more behavioral facettes and cultural skills. You are more likely to adapt and understand different perspectives and different types of people in your professional and private life. Because of each language will treat your thinking differently. Perfect for communicational skills, cognitive phenomena of mental perception and insight. Perfect for entrepreneurs and consultants.

BTW, it’s not important which different languages you speek for this reason. Tamil, Yoruba, Polish, Sardu and Cantonese Chinese or Finnish will do too. And it does not matter if you speak your second or third language perfectly or not. I do not speak any of them as I should. No worries. Just do your conversations. People will understand.

Cem, I second your statement on the benefits of speaking multiple languages.
What I would like to add is the most important benefit that I’ve been noticing over and over again: speaking, or at least *trying* to speak, someone else’s language breaks barriers. You’re much more likely to come across as sympathetic if you show interest in your opponent.
As for the country I’m from: our people literally fall in love with those, especially Westerners, that try to speak our language or show interest in our culture. You become everybody’s darling and you’re also much more likely to succeed in business matters, simply because people favor you over others.